150 years ago...from the Dakota War of 1862....we remember this...

From a native friend on Facebook...

On December 26, 1862 at 10 A.M., exactly 150 years ago today, 38 Dakota warriors were hanged until they were dead, under the Presidential Order of Abraham Lincoln. Over 4,000 spectators looked on during this, the largest mass execution in U.S. history- and cheered as the ax swung, cutting the rope that would kill them all. These innocent Dakota men, a few of whom it was said were mentally disabled, bore the full weight of this nation's wrath, greed, lies, and bloodthirst. Before they were marched out to the scaffold specially constructed to kill them, they prayed together, comforted loved ones, and smoked the canupa. They faced death with honor. Some of them held hands. Their bodies dangled from the scaffold for a half hour before being cut down and taken to a shallow mass grave on a sandbar between Mankato’s main street and the Minnesota River. That night, most of the bodies were dug up and taken to physicians for use as medical cadavers. The Dakota people were then separated. Some were sent to prison in Iowa, or concentration camps like the one at Sisseton, while others escaped to Canada and North Dakota. Women and children were marched to Crow Creek in the freezing cold and snow, some barely clothed- wearing little more than potato sacks. Some managed to stay alive in Minnesota, even though a reward was given to those who brought in Dakota scalps. Many, many died. Months later, Chief Little Crow was murdered, his corpse, mutilated and displayed.

We must not forget them. These, our ancestors- our blood. Remember them, and say a prayer for the runners and riders who honor them today. Wopida tanka.

1. K&R. nt

2. innocent men? That's not what Dee Brown said.

"Little Crow began negotiating with other Sioux leaders in the area, hoping to gain their support. He had little success. One reason for their lack of enthusiasm was Little Crow's failure to drive the soldiers from Fort Ridgely. Another reason was the indiscriminate killing of white settlers on the north side of the Minnesota River, a bloody slaughter carried out by marauding bands of undisciplined young men while Little Crow was besieging Fort Ridgely. Several hundred settlers had been trapped in their cabins without warning. Many had been brutally slain. Others had fled to safety, some to the villages of Sioux bands that Little Crow hoped would join his cause." Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee p 51-52

Yeah, sure let's remember the people hanged and forget all about the "Many" settlers who were "brutally slain" "without warning."

Yep, 38 dead is a real tragedy.

August 23 - About 650 Dakota attack New Ulm. Town is burned; 34 die and 60 are wounded, but the barricaded area holds out.

August 25 - 2,000 New Ulm refugees head for Mankato, thirty miles away.

Imagine my 6th cousin Anna Johanni born 26 Apr. 1859 in Linden, Brown, Minnesota fleeing with her parents to Mankato. What happened to her half brother Nicolaus Schaleben, born 1849? He is not found in the 1870 census.

29. for 7,000 people to own 24 million acres

makes them kinda filthy rich.

At that same point in history, my paternal ancestor was supporting a family of twelve on just 120 acres - and he lived long and prospered. Ten acres per person for him and 3,400 acres per person for the Dakota. And actually my ancestor started with just 40 acres and then later bought another 80.

The land of Minnesota was capable of supporting far more than 7,000 people as shown by the "invasion".

In 1850, the white population of Minnesota was 6,077. In 1858, it became a state, and by 1860 had a population of 172,023 and by 1870 a population of 439,706 and by 1880 it had 780,773 and over 2 million by 1910

Yet those 170,000 did not just march in and slaughter and enslave and drive out the 7,000 arrayed against them. Instead they made arrangements to purchase the land at an agreed upon price.

July 1851 - Treaty of Traverse des Sioux ceded to the U.S. lands in southwestern portions of the Minnesota Territoryfor $1.665 million in cash and annuities.

August 1851 - Treaty of Mendota ceded to the U.S. additional lands in southeastern portions of the Minnesota Territory for $1.41 million in cash and annuities.

total of about 24 million acres at a cost of only 13 cents an acre (wiki says 3 cents for some reason) which they sold for $1.25 an acre

August 1851 - 7,000 Dakota move into two reservations bordering the Minnesota River in southwestern Minnesota.

Of course, true to American history a group of scammers, some of them in positions of power - Governor Ramsey, Colonel Sibley and Andrew Myrick saw those treaties as an opportunity to steal some money by chargin inflated prices and outrageous interest rates. At least they stand accused by some, and it is not implausible. But not definitive either. They could be charging fair prices and reasonable rates and still have unhappy customers. And in 1862, the trader Myrick refused to give credit to Native Americans who were starving, was reported to have said "If they are hungry, let them eat grass." and was said to have been found dead and with his mouth stuffed full of grass.

And, of course, because of the turmoil and cost of the Civil War, the annuity payments were late in 1862 and the Dakotas crops did not do well.

5. When is a settler an invader? When they lack permission to occupy another nation's land.

The Dakota Nations did not give permission to the Europeans to invade.

If your relatives died, that was because they were invading another country. Lesson should be, don't do that.

Meanwhile, the Natives have been living in concentration camps for over a century due to force of superior arms. Their country is now occupied by the invaders, and NO effort at reconciliation has yet been even so much as mentioned, ttbomk.

25. there is no ownership in nature

Why should 7,000 people be able to say that they "own" most of the state of Minnesota? Did they buy it? Or did they just "invade" it themselves and push other people off of it?

Yet the whites, in spite of their superior numbers and superior firepower did not just push off the Dakotas. Instead, they purchased - agreed to buy, vast tracts of land. While allowing the Dakotas to keep those "concentration camps" - areas of land where they could live their own way of life.

True, they were only paid 13 cents an acre and then the US government turned around and sold the land for $1.25 an acre to people like my relatives. But how much did the Ojibwe pay the Sioux, and how much did the Sioux pay the Crows, and how much did the Iroquois pay the Shawnee and the Sioux pay the Kiowas and the Kiowas pay the Comanches?

Although the Sioux were hereditary enemies of the Crows and had
driven them from their rich hunting grounds, (BMHWK p. 133)

By the early 1700s, however, they (the Sioux) had been driven west to the prairies by their enemies the Ojibwe. In but a short time they adapted to the prairie environment and, with the aid of the horse, became 'the undisputed masters of an immense territory extending ... from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains and from Yellowstone to the Platte' (Mooney 1896: 824) (AIHS p 145)

"In 1660 large groups of Shawnee were driven south by the Iroquois. The Cherokee allowed one group to settle in South Carolina and serve as a buffer between them and the Catawba. Other Shawnee were permitted to locate in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee for a similar purpose against the Chickasaw." web http://www.tolatsga.org/Cherokee2.html

"South of the Kansas-Nebraska buffalo ranges were the Kiowas. Some of the older Kiowas could remember the Black Hills, but the tribe had been pushed southward before the combined power of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. By 1860 the Kiowas had made peace with the northern plains tribes and had become allies of the Comanches, whose southern plains they had entered." (BMHWK pp 10-11)

Yeah, but only white people are invaders.

And no effort at reconciliation? Many attempts have been made to try to help. Some of which did more harm that good, and some which helped a whole lot and some of which were probably not intended at all to help.

"Ending forcible assimilation, he (Collier) argued, would not only be better for Native Americans but would also, in the long term, cost the United States less than any of the alternatives - a claim that was strengthened by the revelation that, despite Dawes' extravagant promises, the country was now actually spending more on Native Americans than it had before the Allotment Act." (The Earth Shall Weep) pp 346-47

What? The country "spends money" on Native Americans?

(Collier) received little more than half the $10 million he requested for the revolving credit fund, for instance, and was only able to help the tribes increase their landholdings by less than 20 percent of the additional 25,000 million acres he estimated they required. 353

Under (Collier's) policies, the total area of Indian lands in the Continental United States rose from some 47 million to 51 million acres - roughly the level at which it remains today. 354

During (Collier's) Commissionership, the government lent the tribes a total of $12 million, fuelling an explosion of economic activity: Native American beef cattle herds, for instance, increased by 105%, their yield of animal products by 2,300%, and their total agricultural income from $1.85 million to $49 million. 354-55

(All citations from "The Earth Shall Weep" by James Wilson, Grove Press 1998)

Before Termination, for example, the Menominee - who, like the Klamath, paid for virtually all their own services - cost Washington a mere $144,000 a year; by 1966, five years after withdrawal, the federal and state governments between them had spent a total of more than $6 million implementing the new policy and trying to deal with the chaos it created. 375-76

All of that seems to show Federal, State and local governments spending money, presumably to help or provide services for, native Americans even if it is a "mere" $144,000 a year (in 1960 dollars that is $1.1 million). Not sure what needs to be done for "reconciliation".

32. yet they signed a couple of treaties allowing it in 1851

for which they were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1850s money.

Then they decided to break that treaty with war in 1862, at least partly because of their own inability (or unwillingness) to farm, and because some young thugs wanted to prove how brave they were.

"The four went into the Baker house, killed the occupants, took a wagon and team of horses, and went back to their village where they told what they had done. Big Eagle continued:

The tale told by the young men created the greatest excitement. Everybody was waked up and heard it. Shakopee took the young men to Little Crow's house (two miles above the agency), and he sat up in bed and listened to their story. He said war was now declared. Blood had been shed, the payment would be stopped, and the whites would take a dreadful vengeance because women had been killed. Wabasha, Wacouta, myself and others still talked for peace, but nobody would listen to us, and soon the cry was "Kill the whites and kill all these cut-hairs who will not join us." A council was held and war was declared. Parties formed and dashed away in the darkness to kill settlers. The women began to run bullets and the men to clean their guns.""

Were there not choices involved? They could have followed Wabasha, Wacouta, and Big Eagle, but they chose another path - a path of hatred and violence and death.

They were not heroes, they were warmongers, and their decision to follow the warpath brought great misrery to themselves as well as death and destruction to others.

34. Look at the whole picture. The plains tribes were being

pushed off their lands, no matter what they "agreed" to in treaties. The treaties never meant a damn thing to either side, not for very long, anyway. They needed to follow the bison, so we restricted their movements and slaughtered the bison. They had no vote, no voice, no recourse the way whites did through the elected white government and the military, so they fought, sometimes in brutal ways. They were angry. White soldiers were often equally brutal, to the Lakotas (Wounded Knee), the Cheyenne and Arapaho (Sand Creek). I am not going to say these hanged men were heroes, and I can understand your objection if someone did--but certainly you could understand why they resisted their way of life being wiped out.

7. Yes, let's "wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth"

L. Frank Baum, later the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, wrote in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer on January 3, 1891:

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.

Edited to add. On behalf of my Lakota great great grandmother, I'm sorry your loss.

30. yes, let's

"The Pequots replied with a typical show of bravado, saying: 'We are Pequits, and have killed Englishmen and can kill them as mosquetoes, and we will go to Connectecott and kill men, women, and children, and we will take away the horses, cows, and hogs.'" (TESW p 88)

"the Prophet's (Tecumseh's brother's) instructions: 'War now. War forever. War upon the living. War upon the dead; dig up their corpses from the grave; our country must give no rest to a white man's bones.' " (TESW p 156)

"It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation that seeks only to destroy us...." Pontiac 8 May 1763

One of the tragedies of war, it seems to me, is that these people were, or could be, getting along. I need to dig up the quote, which I apparently did not copy, but still remember reading. One brave said something like "When the news came that we were attacking I and many others quickly ran to the village to try to save our friends and often watched in horror as our friends were killed by other Indians".

It seems to me like Dakota A was friends with Farmer X and Dakota B was friends with farmer Y and Dakota C was friends with Farmer Z, but that once war was declared warrior B had no compunction against killing Farmers X and Z and so on. Whereas if not for war, they all could have been friends.

I also recently happened along some distant relatives who are (part) Cherokee. Dr. Milo Hoyt on 24 Feb 1820 married Lydia Lowrey, daughter of George Lowrey, a Cherokee chief whose father was born in Scotland. They had ten children and many descendants who are listed in the 1900 and 1910 censuses as Native Americans. Presumably their descendants consider themselves Cherokee today.

19. The US is still operating the same way all around the world.

22. History is written by those who have hanged heroes.

Thanks for sharing this. 'Innocent' is a relative term I guess. Or maybe there's 'innocent' and then there's 'justified.' Whatever crimes these 37 committed have to be considered in context. What came before they did it?

It's heartbreaking. Everything this country did re: Native people is just appalling.

10. A heart felt documentary commemorating this tragedy

called "Dakota 38 + 2" traces a path back to the time through a VietNam veteran.

In the spring of 2005, Jim Miller, a Native spiritual leader and Vietnam veteran, found himself in a dream riding on horseback across the great plains of South Dakota. Just before he awoke, he arrived at a riverbank in Minnesota and saw 38 of his Dakota ancestors hanged. At the time, Jim knew nothing of the largest mass execution in United States history, ordered by Abraham Lincoln on December 26, 1862. "When you have dreams, you know when they come from the creator... As any recovered alcoholic, I made believe that I didn't get it. I tried to put it out of my mind, yet it's one of those dreams that bothers you night and day."
Now, four years later, embracing the message of the dream, Jim and a group of riders retrace the 330-mile route of his dream on horseback from Lower Brule, South Dakota to Mankato, Minnesota to arrive at the hanging site on the anniversary of the execution. "We can't blame the wasichus anymore. We're doing it to ourselves. We're selling drugs. We're killing our own people. That's what this ride is about, is healing." This is the story of their journey- the blizzards they endure, the Native and Non-Native communities that house and feed them along the way, and the dark history they are beginning to wipe away.

38. Thank you so much for posting this documentary, yellerpup...

How skewed the teaching of US history has been in favor of the victorious White Man version. I grew up in Nebraska, surrounded by Native American place names, just south of the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations and practically next door to the Omaha Reservation.

What a damning indictment of the history taught in my schools, that I only learned the truth about the treatment of the plains First Nation peoples when I got to Europe.

One of the most shameful episodes in our history, among many others.

Not long ago, during a trip back to Nebraska, I visited Fort Robinson and the Red Cloud Indian Agency, where Crazy Horse was killed in September 1877 after surrendering to the US Army.

More tragedy followed:
"In January 1879, Chief Morning Star (also known as Dull Knife) led the Northern Cheyenne in an outbreak from the agency. Because the Cheyenne had refused to return to Indian Territory, where they believed conditions were too adverse for them to survive, the army had been holding them without adequate food, water or heat during the severe winter to try to force them into submission. Soldiers hunted down the escapees and killed most over the next several weeks. The event marked the end of the Sioux and Cheyenne Wars in Nebraska." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robinson

Never did I hear a whisper of this during all of my school years. And I grew up practically right next door. Sad commentary...

39. There are so many untold stories

from history that shed light on the past. Sometimes that past is just too uncomfortable to admit. I'm so excited that more stories are coming out. Have you read, "Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers" by Wm. S. Yellow Robe, Jr? He is a descendent of a buffalo soldier and writes in this play about being a mixed-blood on the rez, but he must be talking about the same people from Ft. Robinson. After a reading of my play on the manipulation of land allotments in Indian Territory a woman came up to me and said, "I'm from Oklahoma, I know all that's true, but I never heard anything like that at school." "Waaxe's Law" by Mary Kathryn Nagle is an award winning account of the court case of Standing Bear (Ponca) in 1877 in which the outcome is that Native Americans were recognized as human for the first time. The Eagle Project in NYC is working to get native and mixed-blood voices out there.

40. The "Eagle Project" sounds like a long over-due initiative...

How can any serious social commentator even pose the question: "Why such rampant poverty and sociological dysfunction, i.e. alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence, delinquency and homicide/suicide among Native American peoples?"

With their ancestral lands stolen, their cultures and languages trashed, and an alien way of life forced upon them, they are suffering from collective and untreated PTSD.

After all, Wounded Knee only happened 122 years ago--a blink of an eye in historical terms.

Thanks for the book suggestion, yeller. The title does ring a bell, so I should be able to find it even here in Europe.

42. The Yellow Robe book

is an anthology of his plays. If you can't find it PM me and I will get a copy for you from Bill. Yes, the initiative is over due and with so much educating/entertaining to do we all hope to see our work more widely seen. Thanks so much for your interest and sensitivity.

16. When my ancestors came to Plymouth Plantation ...

...people thought that bringing Christianity to the New World would improve the weather and that the wolves would go away.
They were especially thankful to God for removing the savages in such a timely manner, leaving the land and sometimes whole villages deserted, in favor of the newcomers.
They did convert some of the natives who survived the epidemics brought by the whites and referred to them as 'Praying Indians'.
In response to a war with non-praying indians, the converted were set out on an island in Boston harbor where they endured a winter. Half died of starvation and exposure. Evidently, conversion was not enough.
It is impossible to think of these attitudes as anything other than insane but that was the state of sanity in those days.
- and maybe these days, too. -
People are quick not to judge the people of the past outside of the context of the times and maybe that's right, but I have a question:
Were the Nazis any less sincere about their murderous racism than American immigrants were?
Was American Manifest Destiny any different than the Nazi doctrine of 'Lebensraum'?
Was one a tragedy and the other evil?
Just asking. I have no answers.

17. my GGGrandfather may have been involved (jeez I hope not!)

So far I know that he Re-enlisted in the Army in April 1861 when A Lincoln called for volunteers. But his obit says he "went west to fight the Indians" and he was stationed at Ft Ripley in Minn.
A lot of the settlers that were killed were German, and my hypothesis at this time (very limited info) is that he may have first signed up because of that.
I'll have to research a little more to see where his division was in 1862. Thanks for the post.

47. George FAUBEL, b. 1834 d. 1915

What an amazing time period for a life to cover! I would certainly have enjoyed talking with your GGGrandfather about his experiences, and his thoughts about the enormous changes which occured over his lifetime.

20. I have been in Mankato and had no idea about this tragedy

Much of our racist national attitude comes from this part of our history.
But with knowledge and honesty the future will show less or none of these types of tragedies.
The US Army still carries ribbons of the "Indian Wars" on their flags in ceremony. That is a disgrace and should be rectified.

Finally, we as individuals should not suffer "the sins of our fathers." Not to diminish the history, but to carry on as better knowledgeable Humans. I believe the Dakota Sioux have forgiven the white culture and are looking forward.

I listen to the progressive talk station in Minneapolis and hear a commercial that states that the Indian nations contribute funds in their area voluntarily.
From their web site:
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is a federally recognized Indian Tribe located in Prior Lake, MN. As a sovereign nation, the SMSC provides services and infrastructure for tribal members. The SMSC interacts on a government to government basis with local, county, state and federal units of government. The SMSC is committed to being a good steward of the earth, adding environmentally sound facilities and amenities to the reservation, like the Water Reclamation Facility, the Organic Recycling Facility, the wind turbine, solar panels, geothermal energy, and more. A charitable giving program based on Dakota tradition has resulted in the SMSC donating over $243 million since 1996 to other Indian Tribes, charitable organizations and schools. The SMSC is the largest employer in Scott County, MN, with over 4,100 employees. The SMSC is a strong contributor to the local economy as the owner and operator of Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, Little Six Casino, and non-gaming enterprises including Dakotah! Sport and Fitness, Playworks, Wozupi, The Meadows at Mystic Lake, Mazopiya, and other enterprises.

Thank you for your interest in the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.

Commemorating December 26, 1862

Flags will be at half-staff on Wednesday, December 26, 2012, to commemorate the 150 years since the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors in Mankato, Minnesota. It remains the largest mass execution in the history of the United States. We remember the 38 and the sacrifices of all those who came before us.

21. Whaa? Americans AREN'T perfect?

Really?

I love when people think it's OK to police the world, but forget about our own past. My favorite was when I was in 8th grade, my teacher told me to write a paper on why the Holocaust was bad, but the interment of Japanese-Americans during the same period was acceptable (I wasn't given a choice otherwise). The best reasons I came up with were "we weren't gassing them, just housing them" and "it was just an executive order, not the law."